Car Culture In The Ussr, 1960s-1980s

摘要

Car culture thus represented a somewhat contradictory phenomenon within the Soviet Union during the 1960s through the 1980s: on the one hand, it emerged from privileged access to a much-sought-after consumer good, and even as the number of people enjoying that access increased, it tended to widen the social gap between car owners and citizens who depended entirely on public transportation; and on the other, it prompted contacts-indeed dependency relations-that were arguably more "democratic" and autonomous from official strictures than most other everyday interactions. These contacts and relations were established and maintained largely outside the purview of state authorities and the application of Soviet law. Thus, like the realm of auto mechanics in the United States before the era of onboard diagnostics and computerization, they occupied what Kevin Borg has referred to as "technology's middle ground . . . the ambiguous social space between production and consumption." Not known for their tolerance of ambiguity, Soviet authorities nonetheless allowed this space to exist, probably because they were powerless to do otherwise.